patrick.net

High home prices can be attributed to the "Two Income Trap."

http://www.amazon.com/The-Two-Income-Trap-Middle-Class-Parents/dp/0465090907/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352532962&sr=8-1&keywords=two+income+trap

I think push-education should be limited to K-6. Then, students should know what they want to know more and educators should help them find answers themselves.

A robust society has people with very different perspectives. For this to happen, education must be flexible. We do not even need a lot of teachers.

Education quality is not the problem, parenting quality is in most cases.

1) Encourage at least one parent to stay home and raise the kids

Not practical since today it takes two median incomes to raise a family with any kind of financial security. Of course, if half the domestic work force dropped out of the market, wages would rise. But ever family has a strong incentive to defect, so that won't happen.

2) Dissociate school assignment from residency

Absolutely, and there's only one effective way to do that. See below.

3) Teach kids to find passions, ask questions, and get answers with help

It is impossible to teach passion. The best you can do is start a government funded project to breed nerds with supermodels. Their offspring would be beautiful and passionate about learning -- both dominate traits. I've been advocating this for decades to no avail.

4) De-emphasize higher education for all except specialized areas

Raising the bar is essential for degrees and certification to mean anything in the real world. However, doing so will not increase the education of the masses.

The real solution is...

What's wrong with the educational system and how to fix it.

This guy is a genius. He explains everything that needs to be done to end the education crisis and ensure that all people regardless of income, ethnic background, or anything else have the opportunity to maximize their educational potential.

Get rid of mindless classes and double up on Math, Science, English, and History.
Cancel everything else ! extend to 9 hrs and 11 months in a year.

Fire teachers who fail.. merit increase who succeed..

This is the Steve Jobs ideas...

thomaswong.1986 says

Fire teachers who fail.. merit increase who succeed..

And how does one evaluate the success or failure of teachers? By how well their students do? If so, then all teachers will compete for jobs at schools in which the students already succeed and the poor performing schools will get the worst teachers as no one will want to work there.

Even more importantly, as long as education relies on expensive human labor -- which is fucking retarded in the information age -- then education will be expensive and therefore scarce. It's okay that some things are scarce like gold, diamonds, yachts. But education should not be scarce, and the only way to ensure that is to eliminate the human labor that is proportional to the number of students.

thomaswong.1986 says

Get rid of mindless classes and double up on Math, Science, English, and History.

Cancel everything else ! extend to 9 hrs and 11 months in a year.

Fire teachers who fail.. merit increase who succeed..

"Mindless" classes can be vital. A society will not be robust if we start deciding what is useful and what is not.

School weeks can be shortened to 4 days and it will be just as effective. Student just need to think for themselves.

thomaswong.1986 says

This is the Steve Jobs ideas...

A dead visionary is still a dead man. :-)

Dan8267 says

But education should not be scarce, and the only way to ensure that is to eliminate the human labor that is proportional to the number of students.

I totally agree.

Education should be readily available, but I rather let students choose what they want earlier on.

We do not need millions who "know" calculus. We need a more philosophy and arts students.

5) - Allow open test for college credits.
6) - stop focusing on the value of an education to a lot of people 17-18 year olds, at a time when they no least about them selves or what they want to do when they grow up. And include that sentiment to all age groups the importance of an education. We should be asking 40 year olds, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Fellas, we're in the age of the internet. When I was in school, resources like the sites below, simply did not exist.

http://www.academicearth.org

http://www.khanacademy.org

Now, given that we have much of the pertinent educational content online, why are we still bickering about teachers, class sizes, etc? It seems like the focus on 'fixing' education is very 20th century, when kids should already be learning online and be done with school before coming of age.

Get rid of teacher's unions.

zzyzzx says

Get rid of teacher's unions.

Yep, but for those who can't wait for politicians to get their acts together ... homeschool your kids, using this & other content:

http://www.academicearth.org

http://www.khanacademy.org

Then, take lower cost, cc college courses for credit, then opt for this low cost British school's online program (http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/courses/search/?solrsort=sort_title%20asc&filters=%20tid%3A557)

As a parent of school aged kids, I've given this some thought.

1) Encourage at least one parent to stay home and raise the kids
Agree, but not practical for most people without a big social shift.

2) Dissociate school assignment from residency
Sounds good in principle, but, at least with the solutions we have tried, it doesn't work out very well. (I assume you are talking about school districts, here). I think there are a lot of good things about going to school near where you live, and there tend to be a lot of bad outcomes when you make people go to a school not near where they live.

3) Teach kids to find passions, ask questions, and get answers with help
This probably has more to do with individual personality and parents/family...Schools should support/encourage this, but they aren't primary in this arena.

A few points.
1. The way schools are funded by local property taxes...it's a crazy system. At least in Denver, you pay moderate property taxes ($2400/year) to get a decent school district, or very high property taxes ( $4,000+/year) to get an excellent school district. With even one child the "high" property taxes don't come close to covering the real cost of "tuition" -- *really* the price you pay is for the more expensive house, which incidentally has somewhat higher property taxes. So good schools generate value for property owners but not for the local government which administers the schools.

2. Class size matters. Fewer teachers + technology isn't the answer...especially with young children. Class size matters and should be a priority.

3. The students you share the class with are probably the most important factor. Funding, teachers, class size etc are (I think) less important than the students. Good students are a scarce resource.

Our children go to a fantastic school. It's a rich, white, mostly clueless school...but there are involved parents, bright, well behaved kids, and motivated teachers. Government funding is down, so the parents pick up the tab (about $800/student is generated through parent fundraising efforts). The extra $ goes to pay for extra curricular activities, assistants in most classrooms, technology, etc. In short, what every other kid in every other school deserves but doesn't get.

I don't think you can buy your way out of the problem (as I said, I think the quality of the students is probably the biggest factor), but I do think it makes sense to properly fund all schools, and if any schools need to "go without" it should be the ones in rich areas. If that means raising taxes in rich areas to ship off the money to poor schools, I'm in favor.

Educators need to be paid more *and* subjected to more rigorous standards. I'd like to be a high school teacher, and I may even be a good one, but I'd have to take a 75% pay cut to do it. Maybe later when I'm rich...

/rant

Peter P says

A dead visionary is still a dead man. :-)

Steve Jobs was no visionary. He was an IP thief like all the IT titans.

Peter P says

We do not need millions who "know" calculus. We need a more philosophy and arts students.

I disagree with this part. I've learned far more about the nature of life and the universe, and how to model politics and morality, and how to structure society for social justice from mathematics than from all the philosophers in all of history combined.

Philosophers can't even answer the question, "What is the meaning of life?", and that's one of the easiest questions to answer.

Let's face it, the best way to improve education is to modify the human genome so that humans don't enter puberty until they are in their 30s. That way high school and college students can actually concentrate on learning.

irormatog says

Hello.

Hi.

Peter P says

Throwing money at a failure will only turn it into an expensive failure

Your premise is a lie. Public education is successful to varying degrees. Most of the students at all of the best colleges and universities come from public schools. If more money can be directed to smaller class sizes and higher pay for teachers (attracting better people in to the profession) then how in the world can this be considered throwing money at failure?

Please think about this before you answer it.

The truth is everyone wants a rationalization for spending less on public education.

"Oh, we all know that money obviously isn't the answer"

zzyzzx says

Get rid of teacher's unions

Yes because we all know that teachers unions are all about:

1) Big money that union leaders get

2) Influencing elections to get communists elected

3) protecting child molesters and terrible teachers so that they can never get fired.

(but secretly getting rid of unions is actually about paying teachers less and privatizing public schools)

marcus says

Peter P says

Throwing money at a failure will only turn it into an expensive failure

Your premise is a lie. Public education is successful to varying degrees. Most of the students at all of the best colleges and universities come from public schools. If more money can be directed to smaller class sizes and higher pay for teachers (attracting better people in to the profession) then how in the world can this be considered throwing money at failure?

Please think about this before you answer it.

The truth is everyone wants a rationalization for spending less on public education.

"Oh, we all know that money obviously isn't the answer"

It is almost like saying that stimulus programs will benefit the middle class.

marcus says

zzyzzx says

Get rid of teacher's unions

Yes because we all know that teachers unions are all about:

1) Big money that union leaders get

2) Influencing elections to get communists elected

3) protecting child molesters and terrible teachers so that they can never get fired.

(but secretly getting rid of unions is actually about paying teachers less and privatizing public schools)

We should have fewer teachers, larger class size, and more distant learning.

marcus says

Public education is successful to varying degrees. Most of the students at all of the best colleges and universities come from public schools.

How's that a measurement of success? Of course, almost everyone in college, has to have gone through either a K-12 diploma program or a homeschooling (plus GED) program. And then, the latter group of students won't have a GPA/class rank, only SATs I & II, therefore, on the whole, you'll see more ppl in the K-12 system than outside of it for the sake of convenience and tradition.

BTW, homeschoolers in the greater Boston area can take night classes at Harvard's extension/outreach program.

http://www.extension.harvard.edu

And thus, can have an official GPA, now university instead of HS level.

Here's someone who did exactly that ...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/us-education-homeschooling-idUSTRE72F4WS20110316

- Get rid of unions.
- Allow teachers to be graded on performance.
- Give parents a voucher for 100% of public education costs and let them pick any school they want, forcing public schools to compete for children, not be forced into one based on their location.

Competition drives capitalism, let the competition be.

FortWayne says

- Get rid of unions.
- Allow teachers to be graded on performance.

Some people are so incredibly clueless about the education world. You're willing to risk destroying our public school foundation, why ?

Because of propaganda ?

marcus says

Most of the students at all of the best colleges and universities come from public schools. If more money can be directed to smaller class sizes and higher pay for teachers (attracting better people in to the profession) then how in the world can this be considered throwing money at failure?

Logically that's a bit of a odd statement. First and foremost is that there are far fewer private schools than public. When parents pay for private schools they actually end up paying for education twice as their property taxes pay for public school AND they pay for private. Sure there's some charter schools but that is often rare and not the case. The majority of a towns local budget is for education anyway.

How can it be failure? Let me explain.
I can only speak for Mass but when a school pretty much fails they give significant financial incentives by the state (which can then take it over) to attract teachers. After all they cannot raise the standards for teachers without raising compensation..otherwise few will show up. Just like special education pays much more than other education. You have fewer people qualified to teach and much less students and the production of scale makes more sense to have this be more local.

Higher spending on education does not mean better results. How can that be? Because some of the worst schools in mass receive state aid to the point where they are among the top spenders per student in the state.

If a school fails where they spend nearly 25k on each student per year while another has the vast majority passing and they spend 8k a year or less then something is really wrong at home.

I'm no fan of the teachers unions or any union for that matter but accountability really lies with the parents. Even if you have great afterschool programs what happens on weekends? What happens during summers?

Here's an article by a former teacher where he describes that 10% of students are neglected and need support and 10% have had helicopter parents to the point where their parents explode if something is wrong.
http://voices.yahoo.com/why-teaching-public-school-sucks-598647.html?cat=4

In public school you cannot kick people out, this is the major difference in private school. If you fail, you act up...goodbye.

Having a system of equality for all might sound great from a ethical background but the reality is it ignores the environment. Here's another example with a different subject. In Mass we have a shelter mandate that everyone is supposed to have shelter. Like schools there is no real entity of a state run facility so this largely falls on non profits. Well non profits must be able to receive funding and shelters need to be secure. Because of this level 3 sex offenders and arsonists are now allowed to be sheltered. No one will donate if they stay there. Likewise with education there is only so far the government can go. Per state laws a student can only be kept back three years. No one older than 21 is allowed to be a student in the classroom.

It is natural that some suggest that there needs to be a form of equality amongst districts in terms of a metric. We have that..it's a standardized test. If school abc is rich and xyz is well..poor but students from both excel in the test then it can be equal to an employer. But then there's those that don't test well, then there's those that argue it is just teaching the test. Given that tests determine higher education what do they expect?

I don't think that there are issues with public education. But there ARE issues at the way how parents think there are instant and easy solutions to poor performance. The stakes are higher now, the standards are higher now and parents need to step it up.

Anyone attempting to argue that education only occurs in a classroom would be like trying to suggest that health only occurs in a doctors office.

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Shostakovich says

Make all schools examination schools. If you don't pass the test battery for entrance, you are left on the street to learn to kill starving neonazis with your bare hands.

What if the neonazis are cannibals? They wouldn't be starving and would be a lot harder to kill.

Oooh! Movie idea! Crazied Neonazi Cannibals Invade New York! Sounds like a blockbuster. It could star Mel Gibson as both the hero and the villain.

Bring back the importance of an good old fashioned ass beating.
You can't have an effective educational system when Ray Ray and Daron(Who are on the fast track to life in prison or death row) are holding court in school, terrorizing the teachers and the students with impunity, less some adult end up on channel seven news for handing their Asses to them.

marcus says

Some people are so incredibly clueless about the education world. You're willing to risk destroying our public school foundation, why ?
Because of propaganda ?

No, we're ready to destroy it because we've witnessed the absolute trash that they have been turning out. Every work day I deal with young people who come looking for work. Very few don't have at least a high school diploma, so we won't include them (although some of them are fairly articulate). No, the high school graduates who can barely spell their names, they can't do a simple calculation like 22 + 44 in their head. They can't pass a drug test, they are aghast that they actually have to (are suppose to) show up to work every day and actually work 8 (or more) hours per day. Too large a percentage of students coming out of public schools are worthless blobs, it's a shame and a huge waste of money and time.

Odd....I went to public school did OK. My sis went to public school and then off to Harvard and a Ph.D. Brother in law went to public school and MIT. Cousins went to public school and two attended Stanford, one went to MIT, rest went to UVA and UNC. I'd say 3/4 of the Stanford MBAs I know are public school grads.

Maybe I live in an Asian bubble. Shrug.....

Here is a novel idea. How about we look at other school systems that are successful, and borrow ideas from them?

I think that the Finish school system would be a good place to start. They spend less money on students than we do in the US and have some of the best results in the world.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html

The K-12 school system today is nothing more than a glorified daycare system built to feed the financial appetite of a unionized workforce.

80-90% of teachers could and should be eliminated and replaced by online mass instruction geared toward learning a SKILL that is directly transferrable to a job that is needed in the economy.

It would also be nice if our education system taught something of value and rooted in reality - like how to be a decent neighbor, how to make friends, how to start a business, how to be successful, how to fix broken crap in your house, how to critically think, etc...

leo707 says

Here is a novel idea. How about we look at other school systems that are successful, and borrow ideas from them?

We should innovate and lead by example. What made capitalism work is desire for profit, freedom to succeed, and competition. Our education system lacks all of the above.

We don't reward good teachers or fire bad teachers.
We don't promote good teachers, unions are soul killing seniority system.
We don't promote competition, students are forced into certain schools and a union decides on how it is ran.

The fix is simple if we want it. It's impossible with all the union thugs fighting it, and gullible people buying it. Because unions and their politicians know that they'll lose their grip on our children and lose control.

FortWayne says

We should innovate and lead by example.

Ideally yes, but unfortunately we are far from leading innovators in this area. In order to innovate we should at least understand how other systems are able to do so much better than us for less money. Then if we learn how they have gotten their success then perhaps we can improve upon it.

FortWayne says

What made capitalism work is desire for profit, freedom to succeed, and competition.

Capitalism is great for some things, but not a miracle pill for any situation. Do we really think that it is a good idea to have profit being the primary motivator for any hospital you step in? Do we really want fire fighters competing for who gets to put out the fire?

McDonald's and Wallmart are huge American capitalist successes, and I believe that their industries are great places to apply capitalism (although a whole other discussion could be had on companies like Wallmart stifling "freedom to succeed" and "competition").

Do we really want the American educational program to be the Wallmart of the worlds educational systems?

FortWayne says

We don't reward good teachers or fire bad teachers.
We don't promote good teachers, unions are soul killing seniority system.

Yep.

FortWayne says

We don't promote competition, students are forced into certain schools and a union decides on how it is ran.

There are times with competition is great, and times when everyone needs to be working together. I think that when it comes to educating our youth we (or at least most of us) need to be on the same page and pulling together.

FortWayne says

It's impossible with all the union thugs fighting it, and gullible people buying it.

Yes, but I think that people are also buying into easy fixes...

FortWayne says

The fix is simple if we want it.

I don't think the fix is all that simple. Some things sound good in theory, but when put into practice they have very different results than what one thinks.

You really should read that article on the Finish system for an example of what it takes to have a world class educational system.

bmwman91 says

Education quality is not the problem, parenting quality is in most cases.

Don't forget how much can be invested into kids.

I am curious. If you guys are naively thinking that education systems is equally available to every kid?

Nobody says

Don't forget how much can be invested into kids.

Parents should invest time and money in their own kids. Those who cannot do so should not have kids.

Nobody says

I am curious. If you guys are naively thinking that education systems is equally available to every kid?

Equality is futile. Perhaps the society should discourage uncaring parents from having kids.

I actually think the federal government *should* use taxpayer money to pay for free condoms and abortions.

Eliminate all education. Man's been killing men,women & children since Cain & Able. WTF has Man learned? Wait!we've created computers & Capitalism & that's important!

Dan8267 says

The best you can do is start a government funded project to breed nerds with supermodels. Their offspring would be beautiful and passionate about learning -- both dominate traits. I've been advocating this for decades to no avail.

Well, it could turn the other way around as George Bernard Shaw said.
George Bernard Shaw was once approached by a seductive young actress who cooed him in his ear:- ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we got married and had a child with my beauty and your brains?’ George Bernard Shaw who was hardly a handsome man replied: ‘My dear, that would be wonderful indeed, but what if our child had my beauty and your brains?’ The actress who did not need much persuasion just sped off.

CaptainShuddup says

Bring back the importance of an good old fashioned ass beating.

Ah yes, because violence is always the solution to a conservative.

Why don't we divorce the functions of
- daycare
- prison
- education

A single institution can't do more than one of these well.

leo707 says

Here is a novel idea. How about we look at other school systems that are successful, and borrow ideas from them?

It is Unamerican to model our programs on successful programs from Europe. That's communistic and unpatriotic. If we learn from other countries, it would imply that we're not the greatest country in the world. And maintaining that delusion is more important than solving our problems.

FortWayne says

leo707 says

Here is a novel idea. How about we look at other school systems that are successful, and borrow ideas from them?

We should innovate and lead by example. What made capitalism work is desire for profit, freedom to succeed, and competition. Our education system lacks all of the above.

Damn, I was being facetious in the previous post, but evidently what I said is a common belief.